


an incomplete account of things lost in the drift

by intentandinvention



Category: Dishonored (Video Games), Pacific Rim (Movies)
Genre: Alcoholism, Angst, In Which The Outsider is a Jaeger, M/M, PTSD, Pacific Rim AU, Panic Attacks, Slow Burn, The Dumb Decisions of Daud, We're talking glacial here, because why not, enemies to friends to ???
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-02-08
Updated: 2018-12-12
Packaged: 2019-03-15 13:45:34
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 18,245
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13614603
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/intentandinvention/pseuds/intentandinvention
Summary: A Dishonored / Pacific Rim AU.Daud and Corvo lose their Jaeger co-pilots in the same disastrous drop – and then discover, much to Corvo’s disgust, that they’re drift-compatible. In theory, things can only get better from here. In Daud’s experience, theory’s usually wrong.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This AU is heavily inspired by rebelflet's [amazing illustration and AU concept](http://rebelflet.tumblr.com/post/170412364010/au-they-had-another-jaegers-royal-protector).
> 
> Tags and additional characters will be updated as I go, with warnings flagged in chapter headings/footers. I've never written anything in the Pacific Rim mythos before, I just watched the film and scribbled like crazy, so if I get anything wrong feel free to pretend it's deliberate :D Also, I'm working on two other fics at the moment, so updates may well be sporadic (doesn't that sound familiar...)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Daud wakes up, which is in hindsight a terrible course of action.

A kaiju, Daud decides muzzily, in the blessed dark behind his eyelids. A kaiju’s stomped on _Whaler’s_ head, and somehow he’s survived. That’s why everything hurts; two-on-one combat with an alien lizard-thing the size of a skyscraper was never really a viable strategy, not even from the cockpit of a giant robot, and now Daud’s paying the price for two decades of pretending. The medics must have extracted him from the Jaeger and taken him to the infirmary, and any minute now Thomas is going to do that quiet cough that means he knows Daud’s awake and he’s fed up of pretending to read in the chair by the bed.

The infirmary was damn more comfortable last time he was here.

Daud peels open one sticky eye, and identifies the underside of his bunk a couple of feet away, complete with the cartoon kaiju surfing on an aircraft carrier that Thomas has scratched into the metal frame. A little further away there’s an empty whiskey bottle. Shit. The memories come rushing back, piling into his head like there’s room for them alongside the hangover, and Daud shuts his eyes again and concentrates on retaining the meagre contents of his stomach.

A kaiju stomped on _Whaler’s_ head all right, but that’s not why he, Daud, was passed out on the floor of the room he shares with Thomas. Or at least, not directly. Cause and effect is definitely involved, but only because pretty much any cause in Daud’s highly questionable version of decision-making usually has the same effect, unless Thomas is there to take the bottle away. Oh, shit. _Thomas_.

Daud hauls himself upright with a titanic effort, groaning in disgust as he registers the blood and sweat encrusting his jumpsuit. Fuck, he didn’t even change before coming back from the infirmary and throwing himself headfirst into a bottle. ‘ _In recovery’_ , his hairy backside. They only let him near the voiddamn Jaeger because despite all of their desperate efforts to find someone else who can drift with Thomas, Daud’s still the only one.

Of course, that isn’t going to matter anymore.

His phone, when he digs it out from where he threw it last night, is showing a missed call and a message. _I take it you’ll not be coming to see me after that homecoming, dearie._ Daud chucks it back under the bed, because she knows perfectly well he hasn’t got what he promised. Then he showers, because he smells disgusting and the last thing he needs is to be kicked off base – if they’re not going to chuck him straight out the gate after the spectacular, gleaming fuckup that was yesterday – and rinses his mouth out until his teeth ache almost as much as the rest of his head. The shower drains out ruddy-brown for the first minute, and in the fogged-up mirror the bruises on his sides and arms blur into great clouds of burgundy and purple against his skin. The jumpsuit’s a loss.

And then it’s finding some clean clothes, which is at least easy because Thomas rearranged the shelves last week, and trying to work out why Marshal Curnow didn’t have Daud’s arse hauled up in front of a court martial when they got back from the drop last night. How they even _made_ it back is a fucking mystery, with Thomas barely conscious in _Whaler’s_ harness and Attano near-screaming from the mental and physical strain of piloting _Royal Protector_ solo, both Jaegers stumbling against each other like drunks in the shallow waters of Dunwall Bay. The city lights had shimmered like mirages in the darkness, distorted by the rain whipping onto the console, and outside the Jaegers the sea had gleamed bright blue as it washed the alien remains from their armour. The massive gates of Dunwall Tower base had seemed to take an age to open, the helicopters hovering around them like carrion flies.

Daud stares at his hands, still seeing the blood all over them from where he’d tried to pull Thomas out of the harness when they’d got back into dock. The kaiju they’d called Weeper had ripped half of _Whaler’s_ upper structure away. It was a miracle Thomas hadn’t been thrown out into the ocean with it. Daud’s throat feels raw. He vaguely remembers screaming at the medics as they took Thomas away, trying to fight against the Tower security holding him down. 

Attano, standing at the top of _Royal Protector’s_ gantry as the medics zipped the bodybag over Kaldwin’s head, had been completely silent.

The memory sends a shiver through Daud, and he shakes it from his head. He’s tried one method of tiring himself out; now the next. His gym bag’s still hanging on the hook on the back of the door, waiting for the post-drop session he usually does with Thomas, both of them buzzing with the adrenaline of both killing a massive alien creature and not dying themselves. That’s not going to happen again for a while. If ever. Daud’s entire body aches, some from the whiskey and some from the impact when _Whaler_ was thrown halfway across the bay, but the memory of pain in his back doesn’t have the corresponding injuries. That was all Thomas.

Daud upends his water bottle into his mouth, gulping it down and trying to pretend his brain isn’t playing that awful cracking-snapping-tearing sound over and over again. When the bottle’s empty, he fills it up again. He briefly considers retrieving his phone before he decides he’s done himself enough damage today, and heads out in the direction of Dunwall Tower’s gym.

As always, he has appalling timing. The shifts are changing over, and the halls of the Jaeger base are just busy enough that he can neither avoid people entirely nor hide in the crowds. Of course, most people won’t look at him anyway. Rumours spread fast here, and despite twenty years on the base he’s never exactly been popular to begin with.

‘Oi, Batista!’ someone yells. Daud ducks his head and keeps walking, but he’s not followed by anything except a jeer. ‘They let Attano out of the infirmary an hour ago, man – better run faster!’

All the more reason not to be in his room, then, although honestly it’s not as if he has anything to fear from Attano. Ranger Corvo Attano’s never broken a rule in his perfect life.

But then, it’s not so perfect now, is it. Didn’t Attano and Kaldwin have a teenage daughter? Emma. Amelia? Daud’s seen her on base occasionally over the years, always bright and cheerful as if to compensate for her parents’ quiet self-possession.

Daud’s chest hurts when he inhales, the bruises pressing against his ribs. He drops his bag in a locker, heads for the weights. In his own personal experience, nothing grounds him better than benching over his body weight in solid iron until his arms give out except for a no-holds-barred sparring session. Since Thomas isn’t here, the bench it is.

He ignores the looks he gets from others at the gym, and wonders if Thomas is out of surgery yet. Not that they’ll let Daud see him. Maybe he could leave a note with one of the infirmary staff. The weights feel heavier than usual, or perhaps it’s just the overtaxed muscles from half-dragging Thomas last night. Even so, ten sets later the adrenaline and guilt is still flashing fires in Daud’s veins, so he tapes up his hands and heads for the punchbags, next to the mats. The punchbag’s too well-secured to bounce back and hit him, not even when he hurls himself at it with his full strength, and it’s not until he sees the blood on the tape that he realises he didn’t even do that right.

He turns to sort himself out, and barely dodges being blindsided by Attano’s fist.

Decades of combat reflexes kick in: Daud dives away onto the barely-soft surface of the nearest mat, rolls up onto his feet. His stomach lurches, reminding him that he’s far too hungover for this, but it’s not as if Attano gives a damn that he drank himself blind last night. Attano doesn’t look as if he gives a damn about anything except pulverising Daud into a bloody mess on the concrete; Attano looks as if he hasn’t been thinking about anything else for the last twelve hours, let alone silly considerations like food or sleep or the livid burn up the side of his face and the grazes on his cheek and temple. He circles Daud like a starving wolf, all rage and lean muscle, long hair tied away from his face for once to frame dark eyes shot with red from mourning Kaldwin. Daud raises his arms, not sure yet if he’s protecting himself or readying an attack.

Attano doesn’t give him the time to make up his mind. The man’s _fast_ , all pent-up fury and speed, and strong with it – he lands a few hits with ease, splitting Daud’s lip and piling another layer of bruises on top of the multitudes already on his torso, and then charges in and throws Daud over his hip, and Daud’s falling before he even realises he’s losing his footing. Attano’s anger makes him sloppy, though; he doesn’t follow through, and Daud spins a kick from the floor to trip him, not actually trying to hurt him because honestly he’s hurt the man enough in the last twenty-four hours and anyway he’d rather not add assault to the list of charges Curnow’ll be drawing up in his office.

It’s like trying to trip a tree. Attano shifts a miniscule amount, and then he regains his footing, moves to straddle Daud. Daud recognises the familiar body language of someone looking to rearrange his face for him, and whilst it’s nice to be on his customary ground once more, he doesn’t actually want to die in Dunwall Tower gym. He forces himself to stand and also to not fall over again, which proves entirely unnecessary when Attano grabs him by his shirt and throws him face-first into the nearest wall.

The impact slams the breath from Daud’s lungs, the pain doubled by the bruising on his chest. No time to dwell on it, though; he hauls himself around only to find Attano advancing on him and half the gym watching them. Clearly no one thinks attempted grievous bodily harm is something worth interrupting, but well, to be fair, Attano’s just lost his co-pilot and lover, so they may well be right. Daud deserves this, deserves more, but he also has the self-preservation instincts of a cockroach, so fuck what he deserves.

He raises his hands, half in surrender and half to protect himself, and tries to work out if there’s anything he can say to stop himself from getting beaten to a pulp. Attano looks murderous still, his hair coming loose from its tie and his jaw set.

‘Can we talk about this?’ Daud tries anyway.

The reply comes in the form of a haymaker to the jaw, and Daud blocks hurriedly and can’t hold back a grunt when the impact slides off his bruised forearm. Okay then, no talking. If he wants to avoid the infirmary or possibly the morgue, he’s going to have to fight back.

‘I don’t want to hurt you,’ he warns, breaking Attano’s attempt to get him in a hold.

Attano just snarls through gritted teeth, words replaced by rage. He swings hard with his left fist, and Daud moves to block it and realises the feint too late when Attano’s fingers clench in his hair, pulling him down. Attano pivots with surprising strength, throws Daud back towards the mat on his knees.

 _Fuck_ this is not helping his hangover. He sprawls there on hands and knees, trying to stop himself from throwing up by sheer effort of will, and behind him Attano crosses onto the mat. Through the haze of nausea Daud can see their audience watching him get the shit kicked out of him.

Something in him rebels. No, _fuck_ this. He’s a voiddamn screwup but he’s also a fucking Jaeger pilot. He’s fought monsters that throw around cargo ships as if they’re toys. He can take one pissed-off, unarmed arsehole whose speciality is in bladework.

Attano kicks him in the stomach. Daud rolls away, pushes himself to his feet, and uses the momentum to lash out. He hits Attano right in the mouth, and the man rolls with it, wipes blood from his lips with the back of his hand. And then it’s all a solid blur of pain and adrenaline, and now that Daud’s actually fighting he gets a few hits in, because Attano’s barely defending himself. Daud sinks himself into it, pushes the rage at what he’s done to Thomas and Kaldwin and Attano and _himself_ into his fists and feet, uses every agonising impact to release another rush of self-loathing. There’s just him and Attano and the mat now, the taste of plastic and blood when Attano slams him down and the roar of fury when he pushes back up, uses his grip on Attano’s shirt to get him into an armlock. Attano twists out of it and they’re back to trading blows, and somehow the rhythm and space between them seems to slow, to coalesce, each action anticipated and countered as if they’re taking directions from one another. Daud recognises it a fraction before Attano does, and the momentary horror costs him a kick to his thigh and almost his footing, but then Attano’s suddenly drawing back, fists dropping to his sides.

And then there are hands on Daud’s shoulders and arms and back, pulling him away, and others on Attano, and he realises some fucker’s finally pulled their finger out and called base security. Attano’s struggling half-heartedly, blood dripping from a reopened cut above his eye, but Daud’s attention’s caught by the man approaching them both, his usually friendly expression cold as ice.

‘Attano, Batista. My office, _now_ ,’ Marshal Curnow barks.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which there is actual conversation, much to the mutual distaste of the participants.

The walk is long and utterly silent, and when the office door closes behind them Curnow doesn’t bother breaking that silence, just sits behind his desk and stares at them standing there. Daud stares dully back, waiting for the papers that will tell him that the world is finally sick of his bullshit and is henceforth making him jobless and homeless.

When the silence has stretched just long enough, Curnow sighs.

‘Ranger Attano, we expect more from you,’ he says quietly. His expression when he looks at Daud says, rather more loudly, that nobody expects more from Daud, which is fucking fortunate because Daud’s got his disappointing-people schedule full with Thomas so everyone else is going to have to get in voiddamn line.

Daud risks a look at Attano. The man’s staring straight ahead, jaw tight and face pale except for the blood stark and bright on his brow, hands folded carefully behind his back.

Curnow looks down at his desk, starts writing in a file that Daud knows from long experience will be entirely unrelated to the situation. The awkward silence wells up between the three of them, stretching the tension on its surface. Daud stifles the urge to start talking to fill it; this is how Curnow gets you. The last Marshal was charismatic and commanding, with a presence and voice that filled the room and a no-bullshit rule. Geoff Curnow just makes you suspect that you’re a scummy excuse for a human being for disappointing him, and somehow that’s far worse.

The file’s pushed aside eventually, and another takes its place, and Curnow speaks as he writes. ‘Batista, as I’m sure you’re aware, Medical confirmed that whilst your partner is stable, he will not be able to return to active duty for the foreseeable future. However, that was quite some performance out there on the mat. Hardly a traditional testing, but it made one thing very clear, and with extremely expedient timing given that we’re down two co-pilots.’

Daud closes his eyes. He should never have tried to fight back. Should have just let Attano beat him into the ground; almost everything heals up in time, and someone would probably have stopped Attano before he actually committed murder. But this… yes, _fine_ , he’d felt it as they’d traded blows, and from the way Attano had backed off in shock and the twitch of the man’s jaw now he’s not the only one, and everyone in the damn gym must’ve seen it. They’re not going to dodge this one.

Curnow gives them a few seconds to try denying it, and continues when it’s clear neither of them are that stupid.

‘ _Royal Protector_ and _Whaler_ are going to take some repairing, and we’re expecting another event within the next week. Now, the Boyle sisters are ready to go, and repairs finish on _Overseer_ in two days, but _Undine’s_ still fried from last week and Jameson broke his arm on the same drop so _Watchman’s_ out of commission for the time being. However, we have the first Mark 6 just completed, and having experienced pilots is an invaluable advantage for a new line. I know it’s sooner than is ideal, and I know it’s not going to be easy given what you’ll both be taking into the drift, but I need you to work with me here.’

Curnow pauses, as if he’s expecting the two of them to hug and make up. Daud stays silent, because he knows from previous and painful experience that this isn’t going to be his decision. It never is. Somewhat to his surprise, Attano doesn’t say anything either.

‘Gentlemen, I don’t want to have to make this an order,’ Curnow says. ‘We’re down two Jaegers, and half the base saw your performance on the mats. You’re clearly drift compatible. Why not give it a try?’

‘Absolutely fucking not,’ Attano says bleakly.

It’s the first thing he’s said, and he must realise it a little late, because he winces, and continues, ‘With all due respect, Sir, there must be candidates lined up for the new Jaeger; it would be safer for everyone for me to find a co-pilot there. I don’t know what in the Void Batista’s done to stay in the Jaeger programme, but his recklessness and inability to drift properly is what got Kaldwin killed, and almost Evans with her – and that’s not exactly the first time. That makes four co-pilots he’s gone through now, and the only one who still operates won’t even be in the same room as him. He’s a violent, overconfident, homicidal alcoholic with a death wish, Sir, and the programme would be better served with a novice pilot than an experienced one who’s a danger to himself and others.’

‘Tell me how you really feel, Attano,’ Daud murmurs. He swallows down the fact that most of what Attano’s said is true, and prays to anything listening that the man never finds out the other reasons that no sane person, particularly him, would want Daud as a co-pilot.

Curnow looks at them both steadily for a few moments, and then shifts his gaze solely to Daud. ‘Batista, could you step outside for a moment?’

It’s depressingly familiar. Every pilot Daud’s worked with had to be talked into taking him on. At this point there’s probably an official procedure for the process. To be entirely fair, he doesn’t exactly blame the pilots.

Except the first, anyway.

He steps outside, and is a little surprised when Attano and Curnow’s conversation isn’t angry enough to be audible from the corridor, and even more surprised when Attano steps out after only quarter of an hour, leaving the door open for Daud to go back in. 

Once the door’s closed again, Curnow stops writing and puts his pen down. ‘Attano’s agreed to try drifting with you,’ he says. ‘You know the drill, Batista. I’m as unhappy about this as you are, but we’re in desperate need of pilots. Try not to fuck this up.’

‘You know me, Sir, always doing my best,’ Daud replies, allowing the sarcasm to drip from every word. He seriously doubts that Curnow is as unhappy about this as he is, but to be fair, the man does actually seem to give a damn, and as Marshal of a base as busy as Dunwall Tower, he genuinely doesn’t have many other options.

‘Good to hear it,’ Curnow says, as if he actually thinks Daud means it. ‘That’s all. Dismissed.’

There’s one last thing, though. There’s no way Attano would have agreed to this of his own volition. Daud stops by the doorway, glances back. ‘So… What’d you tell Attano?’

Curnow doesn’t look up from his paperwork. ‘First off, I wouldn’t have asked you to leave the room if I intended on telling you, and secondly, you’ll find out in the drift in half an hour anyway, so I’m hardly going to waste both of our time. _Dismissed_ , Ranger.’

Attano is sulking in the corridor outside Curnow’s office, standing at almost military ease with muscled arms folded behind him and impractically long hair drifting over his face. He tucks a strand behind his ear, scowls at Daud, and starts walking.

‘Drift Room,’ he throws over his shoulder.

Daud follows him, because it’s not as if he has anything else to do. ‘You’re in a hurry,’ he notes anyway.

‘I want this over with as much as you do, Batista.’

‘Daud.’

‘What?’

Attano actually looks at him as they arrive at the elevator, and the scowl this time is as much confusion as it is generalised contempt.

‘If we’re going to be co-pilots, my name’s Daud,’ Daud repeats calmly. He punches the button to go down, and turns to face Attano fully. ‘I’m not going to insist on teambuilding shit or getting to know each other or even spending time with you outside a drop, but if we’re drifting together, I need you to use my first name.’

‘Or what?’ Attano’s belligerence doesn’t suit him; there’s a thread of curiosity beneath the snarl.

‘Or I throw us both out of alignment and we get to race each other back,’ Daud answers shortly as they get into the elevator and Attano hits the button for the Drift Testing floor. He keeps his voice cold and matter-of-fact, because he’s learned that that’s easier than an emotional appeal.

‘That a threat?’ Attano demands quietly. ‘Or is that how you hide things in the drift?’

Daud sighs. ‘No, it’s a warning. I’m not quite suicidal enough to throw myself out of alignment deliberately, and if I knew how I hide things in the drift then I’d stop bloody doing it, because it makes people keep asking me stupid questions like that.’ He stares at the worn paint and metal of the elevator, throws a glance sideways at his new co-pilot and feels an uncharacteristic welling of sympathy. ‘Look, Attano, we don’t have to do this now — if you want to wait until Thomas is out of surgery so you can talk to him, or even take a day out to deal with everything, neither Curnow nor I are going to think any less of you.’

‘You say that as if I give a damn what you think of me.’ The elevator arrives at Drift Testing, all corroded metal and echoes like the rest of the base, and they head towards the console to book in.

‘No need to worry about my feelings; I’m not deluding myself,’ Daud says wryly as they walk. True enough, but he’s already missing Thomas. Five years they’d worked together, and the time both in the drift and out of it had brought friendship with it, and Daud had almost forgotten what it was like partnering with a co-pilot who hates him. Of course, Billie hates him now, ever since Delilah, but at least she does it from a distance. Ah well. He’ll get used to it again.

The Drift Room’s ready; Daud wouldn’t put it past Curnow to have made the setup order whilst berating them in his office. When they walk in, Sokolov and Joplin are checking the last of the equipment, bickering good-naturedly about kaiju anatomy.

They used to do drift tests in fully-armed Jaegers, back in the day. Daud is immensely grateful that Curnow finally managed to get funding for equipment that allows co-pilots to get used to one another without endangering the entire facility.

‘Ah, Daud,’ Sokolov says. ‘Always a pleasure to see you back. I’ve been asking Curnow to send you over when you have some spare time to allow me to study your anomalous drift behaviour, but he says you’re always too busy. Perhaps with a new co-pilot you’ll be able to make the time, who knows.’ To the point, as ever. He gestures to a chair without waiting for an answer, and Daud sits, mirrored on the other side of the drift machine by Attano.

‘You know how it is – busy, busy,’ Daud says, trying to sound regretful. In actual fact he’s grateful to Curnow for keeping Sokolov away from him. He may not have any choice about being a Jaeger pilot, but at least he doesn’t have to be studied whilst he’s doing it. He forces himself to breathe slow and deep as Sokolov fastens the straps over his arms and legs and punches a few settings into the drift helmet. Everything is fine. He’s done this plenty of times before.

‘I’ll do my best to give him the time, Dr Sokolov,’ Attano says sweetly.

Daud considers _deliberately_ losing him in the drift.

Only briefly, though, because then he remembers the child Delilah clinging to her mother’s dead body as he tried desperately to call her away, and the adult lying still and pale in a hospital bed. Delilah might’ve been a conniving narcissist, but no one deserves that.

‘Ready?’ Joplin’s asking. Attano nods carefully, the drift helmet like some kind of crown amongst his ridiculously messy hair.

Sokolov just looks at Daud, eyebrow raised. Daud takes another deep breath, trying to calm his racing heartbeat and throbbing head, and nods. The drift helmet settles heavy around his ears and temples. He hasn’t drifted without _Whaler’s_ familiar surroundings for years – as Sokolov starts the countdown, he finds himself looking for the sunbathing kaiju that appeared in gold pen on his side of the console a few months after Thomas took over as his co-pilot. It’s a newt variant, with big shiny sunglasses and a little drink with an mini umbrella; the real-life version of it spat acid and had armour-piercing spines all along its side, and they’d taken it on as their first solo kill and come back giddy on victory, spent the night in the bar talking and laughing as if the world wasn’t ending with the pace and inevitability of tectonic shift.

‘Neural handshake initiated,’ the drift AI says somewhere far away. Daud surrenders to the drift.

The flood of his own memory and sensation pulls him under: snatches of his mother singing a lullaby, the pressure of the midday sun on Serkonan streets, the earth-shaking footsteps of a kaiju coming ashore and the sirens and screaming it left in its wake. _Whaler’s_ controls smooth under his gloves, and _Highwayman’s_ as well, and before that rust and paint beneath his aching hand; the blood from his split lip and the burnt coffee they used to serve in the mess and sea salt crusting in his hair. Co-pilots, the memories splintering and falling together – screaming at him in an elevator or cleaning his blood from their armour, laughing so hard they near cry or tipping concerned looks from the other side of a Jaeger console, jaws set and faces stern as they focus on their targets.

And then the drift _turns_ , wobbles, steadies, and there’s mud caked over his hands and face and he’s looking up at a Serkonan woman _[Mama]_ with her hands on her hips, her voice exasperated and a little girl with long dark hair _[Beatrici]_ making faces behind her. Sudden misery, the itch of a new black suit, the tickle of grass on the back of his legs, tired eyes fixated on books by torchlight, the glint of the sun on two distant figures of an unimaginable size. Dark hair in an intricate braid _[Jess]_ and small feet light on the mat _one-one two-one two-two_ and exhilarated breathlessness reflected in an unfamiliar face; the thrill of moving together at _Royal Protector’s_ controls, the give of a kaiju’s side against a gleaming blade, the meaningful glances afterwards, sweat-soaked sheets and barely-locked supply room doors and the slide of a delicate hand beneath his t-shirt during a film. Calm, then: the murmur of a sung lullaby and the unbelievable softness of a baby’s head _[Emily]_ and laughter as he picks up and spins a little girl and the taste of burnt cookies and too-sweet cake and pride swelling his chest as a tall young woman in martial arts gear ducks to accept a medal.

Disbelieving silence on a video call.

The drift shudders.

Dark-cold- _agony_. Daud stands at the console of _Royal Protector_ , every detail clear as day, and in front of him Attano is screaming, yelling, crying as Kaldwin drops to her knees, blood pouring from the gaping wound in her stomach. A massive claw is retreating from the smashed hull, outlined against the night sky by the emergency warning lights.

Fuck.

‘Come on Attano, it’s not real,’ Daud says, hoping that Joplin and Sokolov have picked up on the alignment crash. ‘This has happened, it’s gone, she’s dead, you’re in the Drift Room and you need to snap the hell out of this, come on.’ He can smell the stink of rot from behind him, hear the carrion birds screaming in the bright sky, but he knows the drift far too well to turn.

Attano doesn’t hear him as he unstraps himself from the controls, staggering across to Kaldwin to catch her as she falls backwards, skin pale as chalk.

‘Not real, Attano!’ Daud tries again. ‘You need to let her go, she’s already dead, stand the fuck up and get your arse back into alignment, come on! You were the one who wanted to do this, you fucker, don’t make us lose another pilot.’

Attano just kneels there, sobbing and stroking the hair back from Kaldwin’s face. Behind Daud a woman is wailing, high and loud and full of loss beneath scorching sunlight, and he will _not_ turn. He crouches down, as if Attano can hear or see him, reaches his hands out. ‘Attano. _Corvo_. It’s not real. You know this shit, Attano, you’ve been drifting near as long as me, you _know_ this. It’s just your brain trying to process the lost connection, and it’s failing fucking dismally! Don’t make me go back to Curnow and tell him I’ve lost his best close-range pilot in the voiddamn Drift Room. Don’t make Em lose both her parents in one day — she needs you to come back from this, you can’t do this to her. Please, Attano, _it’s not real_.’

And finally, _finally_ , Attano looks up and sees him, and the drift flies to pieces.


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which visits are made.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It has been an Interesting Month, so apologies for this taking so long. Thank you so much for all of the lovely comments and feedback, it's awesome to hear that people are enjoying the first couple of chapters, and to know what you're looking forward to! That said, I'm fairly sure this chapter isn't exactly what people were expecting at this point, but I promise that there will be more interaction between our two grumpy Jaeger pilots in the next chapter ;) Just need to set some things up, because apparently when these two are involved my writing is suddenly all slow burn & scheming central.

‘Urgh,’ Thomas says blankly, three hours later. ‘Daud, it’s a joy to have your company and all, but I could do without the mental image of Corvo and Jess shagging in a supply closet. Perhaps we could skip the more exciting details?’

Daud backtracks and realises that he has in fact just overshared to that very degree, and also recalls that Thomas knows Attano fairly well, given that they’ve been colleagues for five years and Thomas isn’t an utter failure at human interaction. It’s a novel experience, having a new co-pilot _and_ a friend to talk to about it. ‘Shit, sorry,’ he says. ‘I did not mean to mention that. Change of subject, and please never tell Attano?’

‘Pass the forest green and all will be forgotten,’ Thomas answers magnanimously, holding his hand out. He’s flat on his back in the infirmary bed, strapped down whilst he heals, but because Thomas Evans has never met a human being he couldn’t charm, someone’s jury-rigged a clipboard to the right angle for him to draw. Of course, it may also be a preventative measure, to stop him from scribbling on the medical equipment. His short black hair’s entirely shaved on one side, white medical tape stark against his brown skin, and he looks impossibly young in the infirmary bed. Of course, he _is_ impossibly young; he’s only just halfway through his twenties, to Daud’s forty-two.

He holds the pen Daud hands him up to the light, looks at it critically. ‘That’s dark teal, Daud. I know you were a city kid but you must’ve seen a tree occasionally. Less blue. Yup, that’s right. So, well done on not drifting Corvo. Did you talk afterwards?’

Daud rearranges the pens on the bedside table and considers his options. Attano had been quiet after they’d dragged themselves out of the drift, until Daud had spoken. ‘Does it still count as talking if half the base can hear? No actual blows were exchanged.’

The movement of Thomas’s pen stops. ‘You told him he was an idiot for insisting on drifting so soon, didn’t you,’ he says. ‘Let me guess – you also heavily implied that if he loved his daughter more he wouldn’t have done it.’

Thomas, Daud reflects, does not need to drift with him to see inside his head. Daud doesn’t reply, and Thomas sighs, shaking his head as he resumes his drawing.

‘Daud. I was in surgery for one night and you’ve already accused my replacement, who has by the way just lost his life partner and connected co-pilot and is undoubtedly oscillating through every stage of grief there is, of not loving his daughter enough. Look, I know that kind of thing isn’t easy for you, but can you trust me when I say that was a shitty move?’

Honestly, Daud had known the moment he’d said it, easy or not, but that doesn’t mean it wasn’t also true. He shifts awkwardly even so, has to justify himself in the face of Thomas’s gentle rebuke. ‘He _was_ being an idiot. He would have been fully aware of his emotional state; he could have lost us both in the drift.’

Thomas gives him a sceptical look. ‘Come on, old man, we both know you’ve not dropped more than five percent out of alignment for half a decade. You need to— oh, never mind,’ he adds, looking past Daud. ‘Hello, Corvo. Do come in.’

Daud looks up in surprise, and moves to leave, but Thomas’s arm, pen still in hand, slams across his legs to keep him in his seat. Attano’s showered and changed since the drift failure, looks a little less half-dead in a grey henley, hair in a messy bun and hands shoved nervously into the pockets of his black jeans. There’s surgical tape over the cut on his brow.

‘I don’t want to intrude,’ he says stiffly, not moving from the doorway and obviously talking to Thomas. His voice is quiet and ragged, his eyes still red-rimmed. ‘I’m heading out to stay with Bea for a couple of days so she and Em are waiting for me, I just wanted to come by and see how you’re doing, Thomas. And. I’m sorry. If I’d been a bit faster to —’

‘If I’d engaged my blade a bit earlier, or we’d ducked a bit lower or emptied the full clip or stood up a bit faster, a lot of things might not have happened,’ Thomas interrupts, but he looks away to the ceiling as he says it, blinking rapidly. He screws his eyes shut, then opens them and turns his head to smile brightly at Attano. ‘I got off fairly lightly, actually; they reckon I’ll be walking again in a year or so. I’m so sorry about Jess, Corvo. She was a wonderful woman and a fantastic pilot, and I’m sure Emily and Beatrici need you right now as much as you need them. Thank you for dropping by, though.’

It’s a more pointed dismissal than Daud’s ever heard from Thomas, and Attano obviously realises it as well. He winces a little, nods tightly and folds his arms. ‘Of course. I’ll go.’

As he turns, Thomas rolls his eyes. ‘Hey, Corvo?’ he calls, and Attano waits, one hand on the doorframe. ‘When you get back from Bea’s, let Daud know? The two of you should go for coffee, debrief in a neutral setting. Maybe get to know each other a little before you try the Drift Room again.’

For a brief moment Attano looks as blindsided as Daud feels, but he nods shortly. ‘Sure.’ Then he’s gone, his boots thumping down the corridor.

Daud is honestly a little impressed at the man’s ability to avoid eye contact during an entire conversation.

‘“Thank you for dropping by”?’ he asks as Thomas returns to drawing.

Thomas shades the curve of a wave, teeth tugging at his lip in concentration. ‘You’re not the only one who’s been an arsehole, and I’m nothing if not fair. Besides, you’re my co-pilot, and he attacked you because he assumed that you fucked up, which you didn’t. Both Jess and I knew what we were getting into when we signed up.’

There’s a soft buzz from the phone in Daud’s jeans pocket, the triple pulse that he knew was coming. He’s only surprised it’s taken her this long. Pushing it to the back of his mind takes some effort, but Thomas is more important for now. ‘You’re… unexpectedly calm about all this,’ he says.

‘Drugs,’ Thomas answers cheerfully, raising his left arm and its accompanying tube. ‘I suggest you enjoy my goodwill whilst you have it.’

They talk for another half hour, until Thomas pushes the clipboard away and puts his pens back on the bedside table. He nudges Daud’s leg with the back of his hand, pushing him away as well. ‘Thanks for keeping me company, but Billie said she’d drop by soon, so you’ll want to be fucking off,’ he says lightly, his tone lessening the sting of it. ‘Also, frankly, I’m betting I don’t look half as bad as you right now. Go get something to eat, smoke if you must, throw away whatever shit you were drinking last night and clean up our room.’

‘Anything else whilst you’re handing out instructions?’ Daud asks, amused. He’ll need to answer that triple buzz tonight, but with any luck the trip won’t take long, and Thomas doesn’t need to know about that. Ever.

Thomas’s eyes narrow. ‘Get some sleep,’ he says. ‘And think about what you want to say to Attano over coffee.’

Nothing, honestly. However, it’s not as if that’s going to get the two of them in a Jaeger together, and Daud doesn’t have the option to fail. ‘Will do,’ he says, standing. ‘Don’t stay awake chatting with Billie all night, hmm?’

‘I’m twenty-six, old man, I’ll stay awake as long as I want,’ comes the reply, but Thomas’ smile is his actual last word. Daud returns it before he leaves, and as he walks down the corridor he’s struck by how incalculably and selfishly glad he is that it was Kaldwin, not Thomas, who took the brunt of his mistake.

Which reminds him of the message waiting on his phone. He digs it out of his pocket, glances around before he pulls up the message. _I’ll see you at our usual time. Don’t keep me waiting._

 

It’s not a long way to the eastern edge of Dunwall, and it’s faster by bike than car. Daud weaves a little too recklessly through the rush hour traffic, his bike a soothing roar beneath him and his leathers washed orange by the autumn sunset. He’s done the route enough that he finds himself zoning out a little, his thoughts wandering to Attano’s brief presence in his head.

They fit together, no doubt about that. They’d attained a neural link almost as fast as Daud and Thomas tend to; it’s crystal clear that if Attano can control his emotional reactions they’ll be able to drift together easily enough. Another person Daud’s going to have to let into his head, or into as much of it as his unconscious allows. Attano makes six, and Daud can’t help wondering at what point all of the fragments of other people’s memories inside his own head will start taking up more space than he has. After the second, he’d found himself greeting people he didn’t know as if they were old friends, shuffling through instants of memory more than a little unsure if they were originally his. There are always clues, but honestly, some of them he simply can’t tell.

He’s in her neighbourhood now, all rundown apartment blocks and shuttered shops and parks with dubious lighting and even more dubious denizens. A few of the latter eye him up as he goes past, but around here no one’s stupid enough to look for long. Daud dismounts at an alleyway and wheels his bike down as far as the trash-covered fire escape, leans it against the wall and chains it up with the padlock she gave him, her symbol engraved into the metal. He leaves it there, confident, and heads into the building.

The lift’s broken again, and the stairs are filthy with rubbish, mud and broken glass, echoing with laughter, yelling and too-loud music through the paper-thin walls of the floors above. Daud’s glad of his combat training when he comes here – not that he’s ever needed to use it. Most of the inhabitants know he’s here by Granny’s invitation.

Her door’s open when he arrives, as it always is. He makes himself take a deep breath, and abruptly finds himself remembering the agony in Attano’s voice as Kaldwin died in his arms. He pulls himself back together, shaking his head. She doesn’t like it when he’s distracted.

Granny’s sitting by the window, staring at the street through the aged net curtain, but her cataract-white eyes turn easily to Daud as he steps onto the tattered Tyvian rug. Blind she may be, but there’s nothing wrong with her hearing. The sleek grey rat sitting on her shoulder looks up as well, and it’s easy enough to tell how the rumours started that she sees _through_ them. In an age when massive aliens are clambering up from the sea floor, talk of witches and magic is all too common, but Granny’s just an old woman with excellent contacts and a knife-sharp mind, nothing more. She doesn’t _need_ to be anything more.

‘Right on time, dearie,’ she says, grudging approval in her cracked old voice. She doesn’t gesture to Daud to sit down, thank the Void; the hideously-patterned easy chairs tend to collapse in on themselves, never mind that they apparently weren’t designed for people over five feet tall. ‘How’s your young colleague doing?’

Daud never asks how she knows what’s happening at the Tower. She just does; that’s how the world works. Kaiju come out of the ocean, and Granny Rags knows everything that happens in Dunwall, including inside a supposedly secure military facility. ‘Still strapped to the bed, but he’s awake,’ he says shortly.

Granny smiles at the wall behind his head. She has three yellowed teeth missing, and her lipstick’s running into the creases around her lips. ‘He’s a good boy, young Evans,’ she says. ‘Much better than any of your others. Such trouble-makers they were, better to be rid of them. Not that that other young man of yours isn’t still causing trouble, swanking around with his fancy technology and posh suits. Such a bad man, he is, shaking everything up and making life difficult for poor old ladies.’

‘Teague’s not been mine for a long time,’ Daud says patiently, with no faith that she’ll listen. She never does, and it’s been over a decade.

She doesn’t seem to be in that kind of mood today, though. Her eyes narrow, and the tone changes from wheedling to accusatory. ‘You’ve come without presents for me, dearie. Such a shame.’

Daud swallows, reminded of why he’s here. His heartbeat slips, relives the sheer rush of terror as he’d misdirected _Whaler’s_ plasma cannon away from the “present” she’d instructed him to protect, towards the less valuable skin over the kaiju’s massive shoulders. When he tries to speak, his mouth is dry with remembered adrenaline, and the words stick until he forces them.

‘I miscalculated,’ he manages.

It’s a horrifically simple word. Kaldwin dead and Thomas flat on his back in a hospital bed for months, two Jaegers near gone for scrap, and Daud’s somehow able to condense everything down into _miscalculation_. Attano would beat him bloody for that. Bloodier, anyway. Maybe Thomas would as well. He can only hope they never find out.

Granny only clicks her tongue in disapproval. ‘None of my gentleman callers in the old days were ever so incompetent,’ she says darkly. ‘And after all of my generosity as well. How an old woman is supposed to manage all alone when even gentlemen can’t manage to keep their word, I can’t imagine.’

Daud’s fists clench behind his back, the adrenaline morphing to anger that he doesn’t dare show. He knows very well how old Granny Rags gets by. Vera Moray was quite the gatherer of information in her day, and Daud’s witnessed the downfall of more than one unfortunate soul who thought they could best her in her favoured game. She has puppet strings everywhere in Dunwall’s underworld — and its surface as well — and as many of those strings are tied to triggers as to wallets.

The last time he told her he was out of the game, the people she sent to inform him of her displeasure put him in the infirmary for a week. Of course, the files she has on him would put him behind bars for the rest of his life, but he’s no use to her like that.

‘I’m sorry I couldn’t carry out your request on this drop,’ he says carefully. The secondary brain she was after was sliced clean in half by _Royal Protector’s_ blade after the mess its owner made of _Whaler’s_ cockpit. ‘But as you know, I’ve lost my co-pilot. I’ll need some time to adjust to the new one. He doesn’t trust me as it is, and we’re being assigned to the first of a new Jaeger series so we’ll be well down the list for drops.’

‘Excuses, excuses, so many _excuses_ ,’ Granny grumbles, shaking her head. ‘I do my very best to be understanding with people, and all it gets me is disrespect.’ The rat at her shoulder chitters angrily at Daud, teeth bared. Granny strokes it with a finger, and it calms, nestling back into the papery skin of her neck. ‘There now, my lovely, no need for such discourtesy,’ she murmurs.

Daud picks his words with more care than he ever has for Curnow. ‘I meant no disrespect, ma’am, only to let you know why the delivery will take longer than anticipated.’

Granny stands then, the rat still curled around her neck. She barely reaches Daud’s chest, her spine curved with age, but he doesn’t move as she totters over to him, pokes him hard in the leather of his motorcycle jacket with a beringed and near-skeletal finger. ‘You’ve done a good job over the years, Daud,’ she tells him. His name in her mouth makes him wonder how soon he can get to a bar from here and drown the memory. This close he can smell nothing but the reek of those awful things she smokes, unless it’s the hint of rat piss beneath that. ‘For that, I’ll give you and your new young man three weeks, given the rate of activity in the Rift at the moment — but no messing me around, dearie. After that, I might start to worry.’

‘Understood, ma’am,’ he tells her. They both know that he’s understood what she’s not said as well. When she turns away, Daud recognises that he’s been dismissed.

Back downstairs, he leans against the wall beside his bike in the near-black alleyway and fumbles his lighter out of his pocket, fails twice to light up but finally manages it. He takes a deep drag, lets his head hit the concrete wall behind him. It’s far, far too long until his heart stops racing.


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which there are failures and new attempts.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **Chapter warning for a panic attack due to a raised voice.**
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> Goodness me, is that the time? Thank you all so much for your lovely comments and encouragement, in particular those of you who've read this recently even when the last update was March and still commented. This chapter's been a massive struggle but I've got an outline that I'm happy with now, so hopefully things will start moving a little faster.
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> That said, I'm currently in the process of buying a house and having a baby so I'm afraid I can't promise regular updates, and prior warning? This is not going to be a short fic. At all. I might even get ambitious and tag Slow Burn at some point.

Attano doesn’t come back to the Tower the following day. Kaldwin’s funeral date goes up on the network – two days away, all pilots to be in attendance. Daud’s bruises, from kaiju and co-pilot alike, begin to heal, and somehow he’s not called to the Drift Room despite his sudden abundance of free time. Sokolov must have found another pet project. Daud catches up on sleep, cleans up his room, visits Thomas, goes to the gym, swims laps until his brain’s too tired to function, successfully avoids the mess bar; falls to the capped bottle under his bunk. The second night he drinks himself to sleep and wakes up screaming, and it takes him far too long to convince himself that the dim blue glow on the walls is just the digital display, not fading sunlight seen from beneath the waves as he sinks.

He’s sober but bone-tired for the funeral, and sits as far back as he can. Kaldwin’s flag-draped coffin is flanked by Attano and Emily (almost as tall as her father), both looking as exhausted as Daud feels. A dark-haired woman walks behind it, and Daud recognises her from the drift as Attano’s older sister, Beatrici. There’s no-one else; either Kaldwin has no family or they’ve not been able to make it. Curnow takes the service, and Beatrici reads a poem, and everyone pretends not to notice Attano’s shoulders shaking in the front row, his head bowed and one arm holding Emily to him.

Daud avoids the grieving family, fully aware that at least one of them blames him for their loss. He leaves the reception as soon as he can, strips off his heavy uniform coat and peaked hat and heads up to the Tower roof with a flask of whisky and a pack of cigarettes. He doesn’t smoke often, but some days warrant it.

On a clear day you can see right out to the edge of Dunwall City from here, but today the clouds hang heavy over the dull buildings, merging glass and steel into shapeless shadows. Daud swings his legs over to sit on the parapet anyway, and stares, and drinks, and watches cigarette smoke drift upwards and outwards to mingle with the weather.

The flask is just on the wrong side of half full when the roof access door opens behind him. He glances over his shoulder to see Attano, and catches a glimpse of reddened eyes before they both look hurriedly away. Attano doesn’t say a word - just slams the door shut, and leaves Daud with the sound of his footsteps retreating down the stairs.

Thomas’s advice is seeming more than a little fanciful in the face of the last three days. It’s going to be a little difficult to chat over coffee when Attano can’t bear for them to be on the same rooftop. A seventh of the time Granny alloted Daud has passed, and he’s not spoken to his co-pilot once. He takes a long pull from the flask and stares into the fog. The river’s dull and lifeless as the city today, a dark mass skulking at the base of the Tower.

Time passes, and at some point there are footsteps on the stairwell again. This time when the door opens, Daud doesn’t bother looking. It can’t be Thomas, and it won’t be Attano, so he neither cares nor has to care.

‘Oh. It’s you.’

Emily Kaldwin’s voice is deeply unimpressed. Daud’s not inclined to take issue with her, given that he feels that way about himself sometimes. He’s nicely on his way to trashed again, anyway, so the expected feelings are happily distant.

‘Where’s Dad?’ Emily asks flatly. ‘Callista said he’d be up here.’

‘He was, briefly. Then he saw me, and he fucked off without so much as a hello.’ He doesn’t bother looking at her; he can tell everything he needs to know from her voice. She’s just as disappointed about his existence as Attano is.

‘Any idea where he might be?’ she asks with a sigh. As if they’re friends or something, as if Daud would know where her father might go to mourn.

He sighs, takes a pull from his cigarette and lets the smoke drift away. He comes up here when he wants to think about things, but roof access is always sealed off during an event in the Rift, so he has to have a fallback option. The chances that Attano has the same coping strategies are low, but he suspects Emily won’t leave until she has an answer. ‘Try the gym,’ he tells her. ‘Fifth floor, just follow the signs.’

The door slams shut again. Like father, like daughter.

No one else comes up. Daud finishes the cigarette and the flask, and at some awful hour of the morning he stumbles down to his bunk and sinks into sleep.

It feels as if his head’s barely hit the pillow when the sirens start screaming. He starts to get up out of sheer habit, swearing and swaying, and he’s already looking for his flight suit by the time he realises that he’s not going anywhere. No Jaeger to drop, no co-pilot to drift with, and in any case he’s still drunk.

His phone buzzes as he rolls back into bed, a message lighting up the screen.

**Time we had that coffee. 3rd floor rec, 0800. I don’t give a shit about your hangover.**

Everyone on base always refers to Attano as a nice guy, but personally, Daud doesn't see it. Still, he sets his alarm for 0745, and tries to get some sleep.

 

The third floor recreation room hasn’t been redecorated since before Daud started at the Tower. It’s old and tired and crumbling at the edges, and Daud can’t help but empathise as he throws himself into the seat opposite Attano, scrubbing a hand through his shower-wet hair.

Naturally, his co-pilot is awake and alert, although if the dark circles beneath his eyes are anything to go by, Attano’s running on sheer stubbornness rather than anything actually resembling sleep. And possibly caffeine, given that there are two big mugs of black coffee in front of him. As Daud enters, he looks up, and that’s definitely an expression of surprise. Whether that’s for Daud turning up sober or just turning up at all, at least it looks positive, which is a good start.

Not, Daud reflects, that Attano’s opinion of him could sink much lower. As he sits, though, Attano pushes a coffee mug towards him.

‘Thomas always says you’re not great at mornings, so consider this something of a peace offering. Or truce, at least.’

Daud takes the mug in both hands, and as he inhales the beautiful smell of decent coffee, he takes a moment to bless Thomas for his very existence. ‘Offering accepted,’ he says, and takes a sip. Well, if Attano’s been taking tips from Thomas, maybe this won’t go too badly after all. Actually, thinking of Thomas…. ‘Thanks for this,’ he adds, raising the mug a little.

He considers saying what he didn’t say at the funeral yesterday. Attano’s all in black, long-sleeved henley and worn jeans, and Daud can't help but wonder if this is his equivalent of mourning garb. Is that a deliberate reminder to Daud, or is it arrogant to assume he even figures in Attano’s daily considerations? Regardless, surely it would be disrespectful to express his condolences over morning coffee when he’s half-awake and hungover, but wouldn’t it be worse not to give them at all for lack of appropriate timing?

Attano saves him from his deliberations by speaking. ‘ _Triumvirate’s_ heading back in now, with _Undine_ and _Overseer_ on rear guard. Only a Cat 1.5, but it was a sneaky little bastard, took a while to put down.’ He’s watching Daud carefully, as if he’s waiting for something. Daud sips his coffee, and wishes Thomas was here. ‘That’s our entire roster at the moment,’ Attano adds significantly.

The silence drags a little before Daud sighs and fills it in. ‘So we should get ourselves the fuck into drift so that we can join in with the party, is that what you’re saying?’

‘More or less,’ comes the level reply. ‘You may be okay with pilots dying out there whilst we’re letting our issues get in the way of our work, but I’m not.’

Ouch. Daud lets it pass, figuring he might as well get in some practice for the next three weeks. Still, at least their goals align, if not their motivations. If Attano’s raring to be out saving the world again then Daud’s own intentions will stand a far better chance of passing under the radar, and he won’t have to push his co-pilot to meet Granny’s timeline. ‘What do you suggest?’ he asks wryly. ‘I’m ready whenever you are.’

Attano’s eyes harden and for a good couple of seconds Daud’s expecting a fist to come his way. He braces for the impact and tries to remember which hand Attano favours, his mind racing to figure out what he said wrong.

But Attano only flexes his free hand on the table (left, and ah yes he’s ambidextrous just as Kaldwin was; _Royal Protector_ had the hardware to switch between sword and cannon on both arms) and although his jaw twitches, his next words are as even as before.

‘I think it was fairly clear to both of us that I was the major obstruction to the alignment process last time.’

Daud does seem to recall yelling a slightly less eloquent version of that. He refrains from saying it this time, just nods slowly to encourage Attano to continue. The fewer opportunities Daud gives himself to put his foot in his mouth, the better.

‘Because I couldn't let go of her… of _Jess’s_ death,’ Attano says heavily, and he’s not looking at Daud, too engrossed in watching his fingers trace faint lines of fake wood grain along the tabletop. ‘So that’s what I need to work on if we’re going to drift successfully. I’m hoping maybe the funeral’s helped, and… well. I’ll do my best.’

Attano seems to be struggling with what to say next, but then he falls quiet, staring at the table for long enough that Daud begins to wonder if their little get-together is being prematurely terminated. However, he’s damned if he’s going to leave before Attano’s agreed another drift attempt. He leans back in his chair, and waits, and finally Attano speaks again. This time, though, his voice is sparking with anger.

‘Jess was a major part of my life, though, and that’s not going to just stop. You’re not replacing her as anything but my co-pilot, and I hope to Void that that’s a temporary situation, so there’s no need for us to spend any more time together than we absolutely have to. Frankly, the only reason I’ve agreed to be here right now with you instead of at home with my family where I should be is because this whole programme is so _stupidly_ underfunded that more people will die if we don’t get out there! I've-’

Daud loses the rest of Attano’s words, too busy forcing himself to stay lounging in his seat, staring at the wall as Attano’s voice becomes harder and louder. The hangover isn’t helping, but that’s not the main problem. His pulse is racing painfully, his heart pounding against his ribs; he reminds himself that he’s done this before, blocks it out with years of experience and silently counted breathing. In the wake of losing Thomas he’d been too distracted for the panic to take hold during their previous arguments, but in the quiet environment of the near-deserted rec room, Attano’s raised voice might as well be a switch. The wall, Daud reminds himself as his eyes start to drift to Attano. The paint’s off-yellow, marked by pushed-out chairs and tables, and there’s a paler patch where it’s been repaired after a picture nail was taken out.

The words stop. Daud realises that Attano is frowning at him, disbelief in his face. _Inhale, two, three, exhale, two, three_ , he reminds himself, moving his gaze back to the wall, because he knows right now that even in the quiet, he’s not going to make it to four either way.

Attano’s harsh sigh startles him, and he loses both breath and count. ‘You weren’t even listening to me, were you,’ Attano says coldly. ‘Just waiting for me to finish. Well, _fuck_ you. Meet me in the Drift Room at nine – I’m going to need at least half an hour to go and hit something that isn’t your face.’ His chair hits the wall as he leaves, fists clenched.

Daud breathes. _Inhale. Two. Three. Exhale. Two. Three._

 

He heads back to his room to splash his face with cold water, then braces his hands on the metal sink, resting his forehead against the cool mirror. Not enough time to go and see Thomas, and anyway Thomas has his own set of problems, he doesn’t need Daud’s as well. Besides, it’s not as if Attano’s even angry at him; he’s angry that Kaldwin is gone, and Daud just happens to be there and a little inconvenient. Everyone on base talks about Attano as a friend, someone who’s kind and quiet and maybe a little more direct than he needs to be sometimes, so he can’t be that bad. He’s just having a bad week. Daud just has to not make it worse.

Raising his head to the mirror makes him smile despite himself; the top right corner sports a familiar frog-variant kaiju with a cigar in the corner of its wide mouth, four-armed smoking jacket lovingly rendered in green marker. Whoever has this room after them will probably have some questions.

Time to go. Daud pours himself a glass of water and gulps it down, then heads up to the Drift Room ten minutes early. No need to give Attano extra ammunition. Piero glances up as he enters, waves a vague hand at him and turns back to the red-headed tech setting up the equipment. Odd to not have Sokolov here, but Cecelia was on the same intake as Thomas, so at least she’s one of the few staff Daud has more than a passing familiarity with.

‘Make sure you align the – oh, all right, you’ve already done it,’ Piero concedes, peering over Cecelia’s shoulder. ‘You’ve clearly got it all in hand, so I’ll just be over there until our other guest arrives.’ He ambles towards a workbench littered with odd bits of machinery, and within a moment is mumbling to himself as he takes something apart.

‘Morning, Daud,’ Cecelia says cheerfully, looking up for a moment from an incomprehensible screen display. ‘Hopefully it’s a good one. Dr Sokolov’s busy on a priority project at the moment, so it’s me and Dr Joplin hosting you today. Second drift attempt, right? With Corvo?’

‘Second with him, yes,’ Daud confirms. He sits in the chair, the looming bulk of the drift machine to his left, and watches Cecelia finish the setup.

She’s almost done by the time Attano appears, a hairband around his wrist as he pushes his hair into a tail at the nape of his neck. He glances at the clock as he walks in, and there’s something like surprise in his expression when he realises that Daud was here early. Really, the man has low expectations. ‘Thanks for setting up on such short notice, Cee,’ he says. Cecelia shrugs, waves to the unoccupied chair and gets them both strapped in and wired up.

‘Ready, gentlemen?’ Cecelia asks as she and Piero make the last checks. Daud nods, the drift helmet heavy on his head, and closes his eyes for the countdown.

‘ _Neural handshake initiated_.’

The drift swirls around him, familiar snatches of sound and sensation glimmering in his mind. He’s barely sunk into the memories before everything shifts, lurches into the pattern he’s beginning to recognise as Attano’s presence. A small, angular room with two beds, piles of clothing strewn on one and the other neat and tidy, the laughter of children playing outside on the street, the dark-bearded face of a middle-aged Serkonan man washing dust from his hands [ _Papa_ ]. Daud presses down a well of curiosity and lets the drift take him where it will, feels the slow intertwining of their minds. More memories flood in from Attano: a city from the air [ _Dunwall_ ] as the plane circles and comes in to land, the unexpected chill of a winter’s morning, a burst of fireworks over the bay, raindrops trickling down a window pane.

Rain gusting in through the gaping tear in a Jaeger’s body armour.

Daud senses the sudden seizing of the drift and tries to reach out for Attano, but there’s no response: in front of him Kaldwin is kneeling bloodied on the metal deck, and Attano’s tearing out of _Royal Protector’s_ harness as the sounds of _Whaler_ intervening too late reverberate with the emergency lights.

‘Oh, fuck you, Attano,’ Daud mutters, but he crosses over to his co-pilot anyway, sits beside him on the floor as he sobs. ‘Emily, remember?’ Daud says, raising his voice to be audible over the howling wind. ‘I am not leaving you here in the drift, Attano – you have a daughter and a sister who don’t deserve to lose you. Snap the fuck out of it.’

Attano doesn’t respond, and Daud sighs. He knows, in that odd way of the drift, that there are seagulls wheeling behind him, their forms ghostlike amidst the rain where it morphs to blue sky, and the storm’s twisted to scorching sunshine. Never more than five percent out of alignment since Delilah, he reminds himself. He’s not going back there now, no matter how much Attano tests them both. ‘You’re not going to let this beat you, are you?’ he says quietly. Of course, here it doesn’t matter how he speaks; his words are going straight to Attano’s head anyway. ‘I’ll drag you out of here again and again if I have to, because I’m fucked if I’m losing another co-pilot like this, but really, how much do you want to owe someone like me, Attano? You’ve been drifting near two decades, you can pull yourself out of this so Emily doesn’t have to go through another of those funerals with only your sister by her side.’

The drift flickers as Attano looks at him, and snaps out into darkness.

Daud opens his eyes to the blank wall of the Drift Room, and glances across to see Attano shaking his head as if to clear the drift from it.

‘Not bad,’ comes Cecelia’s voice from behind them, where she’s been monitoring the drift machine’s readings. ‘Ranger Attano, you’ve been the first to drop out of alignment on both attempts. Are you sure you’re up to this? Your recovery both times has been fast enough that it’s not yet cause for concern, but there’s no shame in needing more time.’

Attano rolls his shoulders, takes a deep breath and meets Daud’s eyes across the machine.

‘Again?’ he asks.

Two and a half weeks remaining. Daud nods slowly.

‘Again.’


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which there is a shiny new addition to the team, and Daud and Corvo still can't learn to share.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So apparently it's update week, and the burn continues at temperatures and speeds more commonly associated with glaciers. Enjoy!

‘Again,’ Attano says.

Daud closes his eyes to yet another replay of Kaldwin’s death. He spent last night _dreaming_ it. When he slept at all. His brain’s still telling him that there’s rain in his hair, Kaldwin’s blood soaking into the knees of his jeans, and it doesn’t help that underneath it all it’s figuring out Atttano’s life story in high definition.

‘Uh, no,’ Cecelia interrupts from her chair in the corner of the Drift Room. She doesn't raise her head from the novel she’s reading. ‘The rules haven’t changed since you were here all yesterday, Corvo, you _know_ it’s a max of six hours in any twenty-four. Besides, the Marshal wants to see you both in Hangar Two.’ She uncrosses her legs and stands, tucking a scrap of paper into her book before she heads over to unstrap Daud.

His left leg’s gone to sleep, as if he needed more evidence that he’s too fucking old for this. At least they stopped for lunch today. Something else he’s learned about his new co-pilot: Attano is a single-minded bastard when he wants to be.

‘What’s Curnow want?’ Daud asks, bending forward to massage the blood back into his leg. Naturally, Attano’s already standing, irritatingly fast despite the dark circles resident beneath his eyes. He’s only a couple of years younger than Daud, but sometimes the difference feels like decades.

‘Didn’t say. Probably something to do with Jaegers, though,’ Cecelia deadpans, her eyes flickering over the readings from the drift machine. ‘Closer than yesterday – five minutes thirty in alignment, but that’s still not going to get you back on the roster.’

Only five and a half minutes? Daud sighs at his boots. He’s fucked. It’s not even that comforting that everyone else is probably fucked too, with the next rift event due any day now and the only active crews unable to rotate out. He’s surprised Curnow hasn’t pulled this useless partnership already.

‘You coming any time today?’ Attano’s at the door, gathering his hair back into its usual bun, an eyebrow raised.

Daud bites back a sarcastic reply and stands, testing his weight gingerly and then walking past his co-pilot to the lift without a word. He’s a little proud of himself for not pressing the button for the hangar floor before Attano can join him. Baby steps, as Thomas would say.

Hangar Two’s the backup hangar, equipped for repairs, salvage jobs and testing rather than active mobilisation. The sheer noise of it when the door opens is like a dam breaking – the groans of heavy machinery are just a bassline to the buzz and squeal of industrial welding and scrapping, the shouts of engineers and labourers and the low hum of working systems. Daud and Attano head out across the main floor, and Daud feels a twinge of guilt as the midnight blue bulk of the first bay looms above them: _Royal Protector_ , hobbled and disarmed with its engine housings open and scaffolded, the ripped metal down its side gleaming like broken glass. Attano’s expression is flat as they cross the bay floor, remains flat as they walk into the next bay and are directed around the inconceivably massive hill of _Whaler’s_ disconnectedright arm, its scarlet armour scored and torn and its internal structures crumpled. 

Curnow’s sitting on a crate waiting for them on the other side, and the bay beyond him is dark. He looks as if he’s been sleeping about as well as Daud has, but that’s hardly a surprise given their situation. Still, he stands, smiles despite his obvious weariness, and Daud’s absurdly grateful for that after two days of bearing the brunt of Attano’s frustration.

‘Thanks for coming down, Attano, Batista,’ Curnow greets them. ‘How are things going in the Drift Room?’

There is no way whatsoever that he doesn't know how things are going in the Drift Room. Daud’s _seen_ the printouts delivered to his office at the end of every day.

‘We’re getting there,’ Attano says cautiously. Daud, not sure he can keep a straight face at that outright lie, makes himself look past Curnow, into the dim bay beyond. The gantry’s up, framing a structure that towers up into the shadows. There’s no one working at the moment. Does that mean it’s finished, or stalled?

Curnow catches his eye, and shakes his head in amusement. ‘No time for pleasantries, I understand that,’ he says. ‘You’ve probably guessed why you’re down here: I want to show off just a little. R&D have been working around the clock, but I’ve given them a break so that I can introduce you three in private, let you get to know each other. Maybe it’ll help motivate you towards that drift, who knows?’

The Mark 6, their new Jaeger. The whole project’s been top secret, the engineering teams buried under NDAs even from the rest of the programme, and Daud can’t help staring into the shadowed bay, trying to see more despite himself. Even Attano looks interested, his fingers tapping on his thigh and eyes widening a little as he looks up.

Curnow grins like a kid, and reaches over to thumb the light switches.

Fluorescent bars flicker to life in rows from the floor upwards, and the effect’s that of a curtain being raised, dramatic enough that Daud half-expects a drum roll. But there’s no noise at first, only the smooth, black rise of near-endless armour plating that seems almost to absorb the light rather than reflect it, interrupted in places by the flashes of a glass-like inlay.

It looks as breathtakingly alien in its immensity as any kaiju; all Jaegers do at first sight, until the sheer dimensions of them become familiar. Once the lights are fully up, the new Mark 6 stands maybe the same height as the Mark 5s Daud’s used to, its black armour outlined by the channels of the bright inlay. There’s the glint of a segmented blade at the gauntlet closest to them, the telltale lines of rocket ports halfway up, and high up on the chest the inlay swirls and comes together in a circular pattern that marks the core of the reactor. It must be opaque, though, because there’s nothing visible of the reactor glow. A part of Daud wants to see it lit, humming and ready for combat; another part is quietly wondering if something as massive as a Jaeger could actually _hide_ from its adversary.

He glances across at Attano to see his co-pilot’s eyes flickering from point to point on the black leviathan, his mouth set in a grim smile as he takes the measure of their new weapon.

‘Gentlemen,’ Curnow says behind them, and Daud realises that in their fixation with the Jaeger they’ve both stepped past him, ‘the first Mark 6: _The Outsider_.’

A click, and somewhere behind the gantry there’s the crash of heavy levers being thrown. Daud braces himself for the earthquake roar of engines – and feels his mouth drop open as _The Outsider_ pulses a silent and incandescent blue, bright enough that he has to shield his eyes. The light flares over the entire hangar and then retreats, dimming into the lines of the armour inlay and leaving purple aftereffects in Daud’s vision. The bright blue wraps the entire machine, and now they can hear what for a Jaeger engine is a soft hum, almost electrical, and see a blue radiance from the back of the left gauntlet, on the far side of the bay. What he’d thought was the reactor core cover is a tracery of arcs and lines that now glows softly, intricate and surprisingly beautiful.

There’s something familiar about that glow. Something he can’t quite put his finger on. It’s almost like the whale oil lamps he’s seen in museums from Gristol’s first industrial revolution, but at the same time something else at the back of his head is jumping up and down and trying to make itself heard. 

Before he can grasp it, Attano speaks.

‘Is this another psych test, General? I thought the doctor looked pretty unconvinced by my last one, but this feels as if it’s going a bit far.’

He sounds a little distant, as if he wasn’t particularly convinced either. Daud blinks as he realises it hadn’t even occurred to him that Attano would have gone through mandatory psychiatric testing after the loss of his co-pilot; he’s been through it himself once, after he lost Delilah to the drift. He remembers it being alarmingly easy to convince the military doctors that he was neither suicidal nor homicidal, and files away a brief surge of caution about whether it might have been _too_ easy for Attano.

‘No test, although I can understand your caution,’ Curnow’s saying. ‘ _The Outsider_ is the result of years of research and development, and both the structure and the science behind it has undergone rigorous testing to ensure that it’s safe for its pilots and environment, regardless of combat impact.’

Safe. Oh.

No, actually, scratch that, _oh_ _shit_ is far more appropriate. The glow _is_ familiar, and he recognises it now.

‘That’s kaiju blue,’ Daud says dumbly.

‘Oh, so you do have some sense of self-preservation,’ Attano mutters, but his attention’s still on the Jaeger. Daud doesn’t blame him, and can’t help staring at the inlay tracery, its luminescence suddenly familiar from the aftermath of dozens of drops. That _much_ – and what, Sokolov’s found a way to use it as some kind of power source? And they’re expected to _fight kaiju with it_?

Of course, he thinks sourly, it’s not as if he has a choice. Just over two weeks to go and he’s not even seen the inside of a Jaeger cockpit, let alone that of a kaiju.

It's this or Granny.

‘You say it’s safe, Sir?’ he asks Curnow, not tearing his eyes from the poisonous blue.

‘Perhaps my phrasing was a little lacking there,’ Curnow admits, but he rallies quickly. ‘Marks 3 through 5 used shielded nuclear reactor cores; this is certainly no more dangerous than that. Callista and Jamie were actually slated as the test pilots until Jamie broke his arm, if that helps at all.’

That Curnow was willing to risk his son and niece should, in theory, make Daud feel more secure, but he’s known the Curnows for a long time. Without question, they’d all be the first to volunteer themselves for this kind of thing, if only to ensure that no one else got hurt. It’s almost endearing that the Marshal’s implying that he’d even consider nepotism.

Somehow, though, it does help. Or maybe it’s just that cockroach instinct weighing his odds of survival if he doesn’t at least attempt the Mark 6. And, well, he’s piloted worse. Now to get Attano on board – and hopefully, the more convinced he appears, the better the chances Attano will agree. He swallows the trepidation that wants to push itself onto his tongue, makes his voice light.

‘Good enough for me, Sir. Permission to explore?’

Curnow’s relief is near-tangible. ‘Go ahead, Batista.’

Daud sets off up the gantry, doing his best to project blithe unconcern despite the gallons of toxic alien biofuel glowing softly at every turn of the steps. Behind him Attano is arguing quietly, but ahead of him is the elevator that will take him to the cockpit of his new Jaeger. The decision is not a difficult one.

A long ascent later, the doors slide open not five feet from one of the exterior inlays – and it’s somehow hard not to think of them as arteries now that he knows what’s in them. However, Daud is Daud, so he steps forward, reaches a hand out. The surface is smooth, a little cool, and his fingers take on a soft blue tinge. The liquid inside continues to flow, changeless. He’s honestly not sure why he half-expected something else, but he pulls his hand away and heads around the gantry to the console room.

He glances down before he steps in, sees Attano now arguing furiously with Curnow. From this distance the general hubbub of the hangar subsumes the actual words, but Daud's guessing that either his competence or maybe Sokolov's is being questioned. Well, Curnow handles Attano better than Daud ever has; best to leave them to it.

The cockpit is all in shades of grey and black, and as Daud steps through the entry doors, a blue glow rises to light the room.

‘ _Good afternoon, Ranger Batista_.’

The words ring out over the console, and Daud feels his brow furrow. It's a young man's voice, clear and almost warm – everything about that is unusual for drift AI configuration. The programmers tend to stick with female voices and avoid adding in modulation, as studies claim that tends to prompt a better response from pilots.

‘It’s Daud, thanks, particularly when drifting,’ he tells it, and a light on the right of the console flickers green for a moment. Presumably that's acknowledgement of some kind. ‘You're _The Outsider's_ drift AI? What do I call you?’

There's a pause, a little longer than he'd usually expect for that question. Oh _great_ , its natural language processing is still in development. How many incomplete test rounds has Curnow signed off on to get this thing in the field? Has Daud finally managed to sign his own death warrant?

‘ _At present, I am the only iteration of this generation, and inextricably linked with the Mark 6. Call me The Outsider_ ,’ the AI responds, its smooth voice cutting into his thoughts. Ah; then they hadn’t named it yet. Fair.

‘Understood,’ he tells the voice. The rubberised floor squeaks against his boots as he wanders around the console room, cataloguing the emergency alarms, backup consoles, viewport. The bay control room opposite is empty, its lights off. Daud walks to the console, runs a hand around its smooth curve. No scribbled kaiju yet – and, he reminds himself forcibly, there never will be. Attano is his co-pilot now. They'll undoubtedly find someone more suitable to match to Thomas during his recovery, someone younger and smarter and less damaged.

Fuck where that thought's going. Daud’s known for a long time that he’s going to die a Jaeger pilot, and so far is having some success in indefinitely postponing that day through sheer spite and bloodymindedness. And now they've given him a shiny new toy, and if Curnow's gentle evasions are any indicator, it's a tossup as to which direction it'll pull him in. He couldn't ask for a better future to drink to – and hey, at least _The Outsider_ will talk to him, even if his co-pilot won't.

‘So, kaiju blue, huh?’ he says aloud.

The low whirr that precedes the event sirens must have been inaudible in here: the AI doesn't have a chance to answer before the sound bursts into the console room, the view of the hangar changing abruptly as warning lights pulse along the walls. Five seconds of sheer noise, and then the console flashes and it's abruptly quiet again.

‘ _Single category 3 emerging at the northern edge_ ,’ _The Outsider_ reports calmly. ‘Triumvirate _and_ Overseer _to proceed to drop hangars for primary offensive along Potterstead straits._ Undine _on coast duty._ ’

Ouch. _Triumvirate_ led the last drop too, but of course _Overseer_ isn’t sufficiently geared up to face a cat 3 alone, and _Undine's_ the only one of their three active Jaegers with a decent turn of speed, so best suited to cover the complicated Potterstead coastline.

Daud heads back to the viewport, leans against the reinforced glass to look down at the bay entrance. Curnow's gone, undoubtedly to the Tower command centre, and Attano's slumped on a bench, head in hands. Somewhat surprisingly, Daud realises he feels much the same way.

They should be out there. _Royal Protector_ and _Whaler_ were the best heavy duty fighters in the programme, rarely sent out together because there'd never been any _need_ for both of them; either could have taken on a cat 3 without the backup team firing a single missile. Weeper should have been an easy kill – sure, the bastard had been a cat 4, but they'd had both teams in from the start, and _Undine_ in backup – and it would have been, if Daud hadn't been called out to Granny's a couple of days before the drop. If he hadn't hesitated at that crucial moment, stalling Thomas's shot and losing precious ground because he'd been instructed to leave the secondary brain intact.

And now both frontline Jaegers are sitting half-scrapped in repair bays, and their remaining pilots aren't doing much better. Honestly, maybe Attano was right to beat the shit out of him, even when a week later the bruises still ache if he moves too suddenly. Everything the man said in Curnow's office was true, after all; violent, alcoholic, overconfident, and Void, maybe Attano's right about the death wish too, for himself and others. What sort of a man _hesitates_ when an angry alien the size of a mountain is trying to kill him?

‘Come on. We're going to watch this.’

It’s Attano, standing at the console room doors, his voice grim. Daud hadn't even realised the man had left the bench.

_The Outsider_ must be smarter than its predecessors, because it stays silent rather than greeting its new co-pilot. Daud suspects he doesn’t have this option, but he doesn't turn away from the viewport. He doesn't want Attano to see his face right now, can’t help feeling Attano might see the truth he’s trying so carefully to hide as well.

‘You think watching them beat up a kaiju will somehow help us learn to play nicely?’ he says, playing for time.

‘I think that if one of them gets hurt out there, we should do them the courtesy of watching it,’ Attano snaps. ‘And you never know, it might remind us what we're supposed to be doing back here.’

As if Daud could forget after two decades. Still, the man has a point. ‘Sure, whatever you say. I'll be right there. Just give me a minute.’

To Daud's surprise, Attano doesn't insist on escorting him to the command centre. He just leaves, the console room door hissing shut behind him.

Daud sighs, closes his eyes and leans his forehead against the viewport glass. This feeling’s all too familiar, and he knows that if he goes over to the command centre without controlling it, without levelling himself out, he’ll end up doing something he regrets, probably something that ends in either that cheap bottle stashed under his bed or a fight. So. Deep breaths. He’s made his decisions, and he’ll take what comes; nothing else matters, none of his excuses or delaying tactics, not the bottle or the mat or the drift. The rest is void. 

It takes a while, but finally the beat of his heart no longer feels as if it’s trying to get out.

‘Time until drop?’ he asks the machine around him.

‘ _Thirty-five seconds_.’

Shit. The command centre's a few minutes’ walk away, which means he’ll have already missed a lot of it. And sure, he wants to encourage Attano to co-operate with him, but to his surprise he's beginning to realise that he wants to be there as well. That some long-ignored part of his rust-eaten conscience is telling him that he _should_ be there, if he can't be out fighting.

Daud runs.

He gets to the command centre doorway in time to hear Lena Rosewyn's voice, near breathless but loud over the silent audience. ‘ _Target down. Kill confirmed_.’

There’s a sudden buzz of activity in the room, but oddly, none of the usual cheers when a kaiju goes down. The programme's inactive pilots are clustered around Curnow at the front: it’s a pitifully small group, only Attano and the two Curnow cousins, Jameson with his arm in a sling.

‘The infirmary's on standby, _Overseer_ ,’ the Marshal's telling Rosewyn, and shit, that means something’s happened to Byrne, _Overseer’s_ other pilot. Not that it shows in Curnow’s voice; it’s calm and level over the radio, because he's the kind of man who can manage that even when he's possibly down to two Jaegers out of an optimum roster of six. 'Head back to base in your own time. _Triumvirate_ can handle the cleanup.’

‘Copy that, Marshal,’ Esma Boyle’s voice comes from _Triumvirate's_ console room. Onscreen, the massive Jaeger reaches down to the kaiju's corpse, grabbing it by an unidentifiable limb and starting to haul it through the waves. _Overseer_ doesn't respond; Rosewyn will be concentrating all of her attention on making it back in one piece, mental and physical.

Daud looks to the screen that shows _Overseer's_ console room, and winces. Byrne's harness has partially detached and he's barely conscious in its grip, his visor dark with blood. Sure, head injuries bleed a lot, but that much? He's not going back out there any time soon.

Two Jaegers against the whole of the Rift, and when Daud looks back at the pilots, he catches the narrowing of Attano’s dark eyes. If Attano could put the same force into his glare as he does into his punches, Daud would be gasping on the floor right now; as it is, he’s just reminded that somehow, he’s supposed to be fighting alongside a man who despises him even after two days of merging their minds together.

He drops his eyes from Attano’s, heads back through the door. At least there’s one person on this base who can stand his company.


	6. Chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which messages are mixed.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm gonna be honest, I thought I'd have a baby before I managed to post this chapter, but apparently the smol's on side and they're holding out until the last possible moment. So here we are, partly thanks to [amoeve](http://archiveofourown.org/users/amoeve/pseuds/amoeve) for their leet editing skills and partly thanks to a lot of pregnancy-induced sleepless nights.
> 
> And look, we have that slow burn tag!

Thomas isn't drawing when Daud arrives in the infirmary, which might actually be a first. Someone’s replaced his clipboard with a screen, and he’s scrolling through a dense mass of data with a slight frown of concentration.

‘Five minutes thirty-two,’ he says, not raising his head as Daud sits down beside him. 

Just this once, Daud would like to be able to think about something other than his co-pilot, but at least Thomas’s tone is mild, no hint of the accusation he’d expect from anyone else. ‘How did you even get the Drift Room data?’ he grumbles. An actual answer to the implied question would take too long, not to mention that he’s not sure there’s a way to say it that doesn’t put the blame on Attano for mourning Kaldwin.

‘I have my ways.’ Thomas glances over the top of the screen for a moment of assessment, eyes darting over Daud. He frowns at whatever it is he sees before he returns to the data, but apparently Daud doesn’t get to know what he’s thinking today. ‘Also, Cee owed me a couple of drinks, so I cashed in to avoid death by boredom.’

‘Owed you drinks, hmm?’ Daud asks in amusement, recalling the whirl of thoughts in Thomas’s drifting mind about the redhead. ‘She down here often?’

There's a slight flush of extra colour to Thomas’s cheeks, barely visible. ‘For once, that comes under the heading of things you will probably never find out,’ he murmurs. ‘Anyway, did you realise Attano’s always the first out of alignment?’

‘Of course I did, I’m the one who gets dragged into his head.’ Daud tries for a lightness of tone and suspects he misses it entirely, but he's tired and Thomas knows perfectly well that he understands drifting enough to have noticed that. ‘The man should be in therapy, not trying to drift with a new co-pilot.’

‘Not going to happen, not with _Overseer_ off the roster. Curnow needs you both back out there.’

It’s an effort to keep his voice level while apparently repeating the arguments he's been having with Attano for the past two days, but Daud doesn’t want the staff throwing him out, not when the only other place he has to go right now is his room, with a bottle too close at hand and nothing better to do. He’s already getting odd looks from the medical staff, since most of the pilots will be heading to the debriefing by now. ‘Well, he’s not going to get that any sooner by trying to force it. Attano’s all over the damn place right now, and he doesn’t trust me in his head.’

‘Ever had this before? With a new co-pilot, I mean?’

Daud blinks. Thomas hasn’t asked about his other co-pilots before. He thinks back, to five years ago, ten, twenty. Twenty-two, not that he has any clear recollection there that he wants to examine too closely.

‘No,’ he says finally. ‘Three had had previous experience in the drift, and none of them had any difficulty. Every one of them drifted first time.’

Billie had sauntered into his head as if she’d been there all along; Delilah had settled like a shroud; the other hadn't even needed an invitation. He shies away from that memory, pushes his thoughts elsewhere. ‘Curnow showed us the Mark 6.’

Thomas pushes his screen away, lets the subject change. The two of them are good at that, when they need each other to be. ‘Shiny?’

‘Literally, it's powered by –’

The infirmary doors burst open in a rush of noise, shouts and machinery drowning out any chance at conversation. The medevac team wheel Byrne past them and into the operating theatre, shouting to the staff to prep him.

As the theatre doors slam shut, Rosewyn turns away from them, face pale and jumpsuit spattered with Byrne’s blood. Daud doesn’t manage to look away before he catches her eye, and the curl of her lip is almost feral. Oh, great, yet another pilot looking to blame him for their losses – not that Rosewyn’s ever been amongst the few people in the programme who actually tolerate him.

‘Why the fuck aren’t you in the Drift Room trying to get into Corvo’s head, Batista?’ she snarls. ‘Or are you suddenly too good to risk your life with the rest of us?’

He swallows, lets his hands clench tight to the metal frame of his chair, orders the rest of his body to still and his eyes to return to hers. He’s been holding his own against people like Rosewyn for years, knows exactly how to keep his voice hard and careless. ‘Nice to have you acknowledge that I could kick your arse any day, Rosewyn, but even I can’t pilot a Jaeger by myself. And given that you were just inside Byrne’s head whilst it was getting bashed around, you’d think that maybe you’d realise why it’s taking us both some time to return to a full drift.’ He can see Thomas wincing out of the corner of his eye as Rosewyn opens her mouth, the colour high in her cheeks.

Attano’s voice comes from behind Daud before she can say anything. ‘Lena! I heard Liam was redirected into surgery; thought I’d come down to let you know the debrief’s been postponed, and check if you need company.’

He emerges almost from nowhere, all calm sympathy and gentle tone, and it’s easy enough for Daud to be abruptly ignored as Attano embraces Rosewyn carefully, leads her away to the other end of the infirmary. They sit down as if they've been best friends for years, and every trace of Rosewyn's fury is gone as if it never existed.

Daud just stares, trying to work out how on earth Attano does it. Rosewyn’s never been anything but cold or vicious to him, even before he started retaliating.

‘Huh,’ Thomas says, once they’re out of earshot. ‘You and Corvo sorted things out, then?’

Attano’s glare from the control centre would suggest not, but on the other hand, Daud’s fairly sure he’s just been rescued like some child about to get into a playground fight, and without so much as a harsh look from his co-pilot. Attano needs to make up his damn mind. Daud shrugs, turning back to Thomas. ‘Nope. I have no idea what that was.’

‘ _That_ was practically lifted from my handbook for dealing with people who have too much on their minds to deal with you,’ Thomas answers, and he actually sounds amused. ‘Maybe he’s putting more effort into this than you think.’

‘Then he’s misdirecting it,’ Daud says flatly, turning away from Attano and Rosewyn's little chat. ‘What’s the use of being able to handle social interactions if he can’t drift with me?’

‘For some pilots, one follows the other.’

Daud's phone buzzes, and he pulls it out. The message is from Attano **. Curnow's cancelled the debrief, says it's more important we work on drifting. Sparring might help. Meet me in the gym in 15?**

Considerably more civil than the last one, at least, although Void knows why Attano can't just speak to him when they're in the same room. Daud glances over his shoulder to see Rosewyn talking to one of the infirmary staff, looking considerably calmer. Beside her, Attano's slipping his phone back into his pocket.

**sure** , Daud types back. He considers adding something about not sneaking up on him this time, but restrains himself. If Attano's managed to find some deeply buried reservoir of goodwill, maybe it's best not to tempt fate.

‘That him?’ Thomas asks.

‘Yup. Wants to meet me in the gym.’

Thomas nods, reaches over to his notebook and pen case in a gesture that's become a gentle dismissal between the two of them. ‘Tell him to stick to sparring or Sokolov will find out what he said about his beard.’

‘You could just tell me.’

‘Good blackmail material is hard to come by on this base, and you have the subtlety of a brick – I’m not wasting it on you. Shoo.’

Daud obediently shoos, heading up to his room to get changed. By the time he arrives in the gym, Attano’s somehow already stretching by the mats, changed and ready to go. His sleeveless t-shirt shows old burn scars on his right arm that Daud’s never noticed before, splashed pale over lean muscle and bronze skin.

‘Take it you’ve had close encounters with kaiju blue before?’ Daud asks as he drops his bag by the wall.

Attano gives him a bemused stare for a few moments before seeming to realise that he's sleeveless. He turns his arm to show the scarring, blinking at it as if he's never seen it before. ‘Oh, right. No, that was fire – I was living in Karnaca when Kraken came ashore. A gas main burst near my school, and I was lucky.’

Daud swallows with a suddenly dry throat, pushes away the screeches of the gulls now wheeling in his head; he hasn’t heard the name of that particular kaiju for years, and it seems those years have been better for it. Attano seems to notice his abrupt lack of words, looks up with a frown. ‘You must’ve known that though, you’ve spent enough time in my head in the last two days.’

‘Been a while since you had a new drift partner, huh?’ Daud asks, relieved to leap onto the change of subject. He wouldn't deny being a little amused at Attano’s suspicion as well, although the sheen of it is dulled by the effort it takes to stamp down abruptly unearthed memories. ‘It doesn't work like that, everything coming in at once – it takes years to transfer the experiences of years, and the transfer’s hardly linear.’

‘Sounds as if you’ve studied it.’

Daud feels he should probably take offence at the doubt suffusing the words. He shrugs awkwardly, though, because he’s trying _not_ to take offence, since Attano seems to have flipped himself into a better mood than before and maybe it would be nice if it stayed that way for more than five minutes. ‘I got curious when it turned out I don’t drift like other people, did some reading. Didn’t learn much, maybe, but picked up a lot of fancy turns of phrase.’

Of course, Daud has his own theories about his particular drifting oddities, but it turns out that most Jaeger pilots who've taken part in studies are well-adjusted adults with entirely and alarmingly wholesome lives, so his theories remain theories. That or he lets Sokolov root around in his head, and that’s not an option, quite apart from every braincell he has rebelling against the idea. He dumps his kit bag by the wall and starts stretching; really, he’d rather avoid getting into the details of exactly how messed up his mind is.

‘Anything to help with our current situation?’ Attano asks, crossing to the wall to pick up his water bottle. He holds a hand up to forestall the reply, drinks, then shakes his head. ‘I mean. I don’t know. You’ve done this before, right? Sort of, anyway. I looked up your file and you’ve had a badly injured co-pilot before, not to mention the one who was drifted, plus you’re not sinking me every time Thomas comes up in the drift. How do you do it?’

‘Not being in love with Thomas probably helps,’ Daud says dryly. ‘Don’t get me wrong, I’m upset he’s injured, but that’s pretty different from my life partner being killed in front of me.’

Attano’s watching him in that odd way again, as if he’s trying to decide whether to yell at him or congratulate him. His hair’s curling loose from its tie at the front, where it’s just a little too short. 

‘That how you felt about Billie?’ he says then.

Daud stares at him, stretches forgotten, and he seems to take that as a cue to elaborate.

‘Oh, come on. Billie was your co-pilot, everyone knew the two of you were close. She starts dating Delilah, and it’s what, a couple of weeks before she gets mysteriously injured and benched? And then somehow Delilah’s assigned as your new co-pilot, and two months later she ends up lost in the drift. I looked up her record – her alignment had always been perfect before. You’ve got to know how that looks.’He says it all easily, as if it’s nothing much, as if the accusation doesn’t make Daud’s pulse race and his chest tighten. As if it’s old news. 

Daud had known there were rumours going around at the time, of course he had – he’d gritted his teeth as people had drawn Thomas aside to ask if he was really this desperate for a co-pilot, and to “make sure he was properly informed” as if he hadn't been fully briefed on his new co-pilot’s oddities before taking the role. Hell, Daud had watched those conversations play out in Thomas’s mind as they’d drifted, but to hear the same things again five years later, and from a man he’s barely spoken to before? He’s not sure if the shock or the anger are stronger, and the guilt running beneath it all hardly helps. 

In the end, he sticks to the line he’s used with everyone else. Why bother with more?

‘Billie and I were friends and co-pilots, and neither of us ever wanted to take that anywhere else,’ he tells Attano, trying to stop the adrenaline from tangling the words on his tongue.

Attano looks at him unblinking for a few moments, and he has that weighing-and-measuring expression again.

‘Huh,’ he says eventually. ‘You really do miss her.’

‘Billie and I shared a cockpit and the drift for five years, Attano, of course I fucking miss her,’ Daud growls, his patience gone. He turns and steps onto the mat, looks over his shoulder. ‘You said we were sparring, not psychoanalysing.’

Attano meets his eyes for a moment but then looks away, running a hand over his hair. ‘Wait. But. How do you cope with that? I just… fuck. Curnow’s threatening to bench me,’ he says in a rush. ‘I need some way to. To not miss her. Every time I see her again in the drift it's like nothing ever happened and she's just waiting in the next room, but then I realise it's _you_ in my head, not her, and suddenly I can't be anywhere except that last drop.’

_Fuck_. Apparently they’re here to talk then, not to fight. And Attano wants advice from _Daud_ of all people? He turns back to his co-pilot, folds his arms. ‘I seem to remember you mentioning it before, but I’m hardly king of coping strategies – mine mostly come in bottles.’

To his surprise, Attano just shrugs as he returns his water bottle to the wall, as if he hasn't just bared his soul. ‘And yet you seem to be able to function, so you’re doing better than me right now. Curnow says I obviously need the time to grieve properly, and they’ve never had any problem finding a match for you in the drift.’

‘Function might be a strong word for it, but sure.’ Actually, he hasn’t touched a drop in two days, he realises, too tied up with getting Attano into the drift. ‘Curnow might have a point, you know.’ Even if that gives Daud less than two weeks to find a new match _and_ get Granny’s “present.” Attano might be compromised as a match, but at least he _is_ one.

‘Of course he has a point, but the kaiju don’t give a shit how I feel,’ Attano snaps, and Daud’s jaw tightens, his heartrate starting to pick up. Except Attano shakes his head, backs off half a step. ‘Sorry,’ he says. ‘Didn’t mean to bite your head off. You’re right, we should just skip to the sparring. If you’re still okay with it?’ he adds, as if something’s changed.

Daud _feels_ the sudden burst of adrenaline turn from flight to fight, and he backs onto the mat, raising his hands in readiness. ‘What, scared I’ll beat your arse into the mat if you don’t get a surprise round?’

The response is a grin as Attano steps up, and this time there’s no hesitation: the rhythm falls into place the instant he swings. It settles around them like a net, holding them together so that every punch and kick is met by an answering block or avoided with ease. Like this, Attano’s readable in a way Daud can never manage when they’re talking.

They’re both out of breath by the time they back away from each other, and Attano’s actually laughing as he pulls his hair out of his face, braces his hands on his knees. When he raises his head again, eyes bright, Daud finds that he can’t look away.

‘You want to try again?’ Attano gasps.

‘Could do with a break if it’s going to be like that every time,’ Daud replies.

Attano laughs breathlessly, shakes his head. ‘No, no, fuck no – drifting. You get the same high from compatible combat as me, right; what if that reflects in the drift? We haven’t tried going straight from the mat to the Drift Room. We should.’

‘Six hours a day, remember?’

That dims the light in Attano’s eyes for a moment, then he shrugs, wipes his face on his shirt and stands straight. ‘Exceptional circumstances, I’m sure Cee’ll let us try just this once.’ 

It’s an alarming sign of the base’s desperate situation that Cecelia just rolls her eyes and tells them they have until the first alignment failure and after that she’s getting the Marshal. Daud can’t help but sympathise, although he tries to keep Granny out of his mind as they strap in. The drift coalesces around them, blue and white swirling into the usual memories, snapshots of Attano’s world that are becoming as familiar to Daud as his own, and he prepares himself to lose it all again to rain and dark and emergency lights.

Then, to his shock, the drift solidifies.

They’re fully aligned, not a trace of a question in it. Daud feels Attano/Corvo’s exhilaration, raises a hand and knows that Corvo’s doing the same. Same speed, same angle, same curl of the fingers. Hard to think of a man as a stranger when your minds are moving together.

‘You’re in, gentlemen,’ Cecelia says from somewhere distant. ‘Holding steady, much closer than any of your previous tests. Keep that up for the requisite thirty and you’re back on the roster.’

For once, there’s no struggle in it. Daud relaxes back into the chair and feels the ache in Corvo’s left knee where they hit the mat a little too hard, notices Corvo wince as he registers the bruises on Daud’s forearm from overenthusiastic blocking. The drift flows between them, less of a torrent now than a lake, and they float on the surface of it, eyes open and tracing the lines of the ceiling tiles in synchronicity as they wait for the thirty minutes to pass. Normally Daud would try to test a new co-pilot, throwing their own memories at them to see what might shake them out of alignment during a fight, but with Corvo he’s not sure he dares. The drift hovers like the tension before a drop, calm and steady.

Finally, Cecelia speaks again. ‘Thirty minutes and counting. I’ll let the Marshal know.’

The drift falls away quickly and easily, and there’s a lingering triumph in the last coil of parallel thought. Daud turns his head to Corvo, catches his co-pilot’s grin – except then Corvo’s face falls and he turns away, the fall of his loosely bound hair hiding his expression.

‘Cee, could you…?’ Corvo says, and his voice is catching on something, far from the exuberant parting of a second ago.

Cecelia moves to him quickly, looking concerned. ‘You all right?’ she asks as she unbuckles the straps from his wrists.

Corvo just nods roughly as he pulls the drift helmet off, and as soon as he’s free he leaves without a word, scrubbing at his eyes with the back of a hand. He doesn’t look back once. By the time Cecelia’s released Daud, he’s long gone.

**Author's Note:**

> Comments and kudos are always welcome encouragement. If you want to give me a prompt or ramble about meta, poke me on [tumblr](http://intentandinvention.tumblr.com)!


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